It dragged me a few steps back into the darkness.
“Stop!” I stomped my heels into the ground, trying to flail free of its grip. But those nails dug deeper. It was stronger than anything I’d ever encountered. Stronger, even, than my father. “Off!”
It leaned closer, and I thought it might bite me. A cascade of surreal thoughts swirled through my head. How strange to be taken this quickly. To be killed, to disappear from the world so easily. Eaten like meat, and without thought, as I might eat.
But the thing didn’t bite me. It wasn’t that merciful. It grabbed me instead, sniffing me.
I flailed, kicked, struggled—anything to pull myself free. But its grip was too strong. And then it began to squeeze.
Its foul limbs wrapped around me, squeezing tighter and tighter, until it was crushing the life from me. I couldn’t drag in enough air to catch my breath. My screams became strangled.
My ribs creaked. I thought my hair was being torn from my scalp, trapped in the vise of the creature’s arms. I heard a keening wail and realized it was me. Tears and snot streamed down my face as I gasped for breath.
My cries became choked whimpers.
But then I sensed movement. It was Emma, stabbing the monster over and over in the back.
She kept yelling “Git!” She might’ve been hollering at a bear.
Her attack reverberated through its body to mine. But the monster didn’t feel anything, all her thrusting the mere pricks of a mosquito.
I felt its mouth on my neck. It grunted in frustration, pulled away. I sucked in a blessed gulp of air, but wasted it on a scream when the thing tugged my coat down like an eager lover to reveal my shoulders.
It leaned into me. Its mouth was so close, I saw the fine lines of its cracked and blackened lips.
And then it screeched. The thing abruptly pulled away, fury distorting its face. It looked like a demon, furious and raging.
It shoved me away and I stumbled, catching myself before I fell into the fire.
The monster spun on Emma. She shrieked, and it was a surreal sound, bright and trilling like a scream from a bad horror movie.
My mind raced. Something had stopped it. Something Emma did had angered it.
I remembered a conversation from what felt a lifetime ago. Proctor Amanda’s words: A stake through the heart does ’em in. That bit’s true enough.
I ran toward her. The thing clutched her as it had me, but now an intense rage fueled its hunger. It gripped her savagely, spasmodically clenching her body and tugging her clothes.
She tried to stab the monster, but that only enraged it. It swatted her arm and the knife went flying.
It landed somewhere in the dark perimeter of our little camp, and I bounded after it. Dropping to my knees, I hunted for it. Though I’d taken off my gloves to eat, I didn’t feel the cold, even as my bare fingers raked through frozen dirt and muddy snow.
All I knew were Emma’s whimpers and the horrifying noises the creature made. Its humming growl a sound of anticipation.
I felt the knife, and made the craziest laugh-cry sound. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
The handle was thick, but my fingers and palm found their place, nestling perfectly along the slope, like coming home. The weight of it was foreign, and I wriggled my wrist to get used to the feel.
I sprang back up.
The monster had Emma pinned on the ground. Her legs were kicking slowly now. I hoped I wasn’t too late.
A stake through the heart.
I had to hope a hunting knife would work just as well.
I realized calm had washed over me. Focus replaced fear. I was a machine and I would kill this thing.
I surveyed the creature’s back. I tracked spine and ribs, its figure gnarled and knotty with age. With death. This thing had been human once.
I eyed its left side. Estimated where the heart might be. And I lunged.
“You fucked with the wrong girls,” I screamed, plunging the knife in over and over. The shock of stabbing something of flesh and blood reverberated up my arm.
The thing squealed, a shrill, high-pitched sound like a stuck pig. It rose, slapping at its body, lurching drunkenly. There was a jerk-jerk of its body, and it stumbled.
The fire. We stood close to it. I leapt toward the creature and shoved it. It felt like a brittle thing now, splintery and light. Ready to be dust and ashes.
“Burn.” I shoved it onto the flames. It shrieked, twitching and seizing as the meager orange flames licked at its skin. Its rags began to smolder, skin crackling like our rabbit on the spit.
My first kill.
My belly lurched, threatening to toss my dinner back up. I swallowed convulsively until the feeling passed. Because something primitive had clicked to life in the back of my brain. I needed to keep my food down. I needed to put the gloves back on my hands. I needed to push aside repulsion and dry myself by the corpse-fueled fire.
Because it was all about survival.
The knowledge was freeing. I felt exhilarated. Lawless.
I’d faced a monster, and the monster lost.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“So we navigate by the stars?” I stared up at the sky, mentally Spreparing myself for the long hike. I felt oddly serene. I preparing myself for the long hike. I felt oddly serene. I hoped it wasn’t shock.
The kill had intensified my purpose. I was focused, in the moment, and crystal clear about what needed to be done.
Emma was already walking ahead. “Not exact enough. We navigate by that.” She pointed to one of the only lights visible in the overcast sky. “The North Star.”
“Oh. Of course.” I stared up at it for a moment, then ran to catch up.
I let her lead, and asked the occasional question about which path she was choosing and why. It seemed she might have as much to teach me as some of the vampires. I wondered if she also knew how to track game. Or people.
Without the blazing fire and scent of roasting meat, we didn’t attract any other creatures that night. I was relieved, but knew some strange flicker of disappointment, too. I felt amped, my muscles tensed and ready for action. I had to wonder what was wrong with me.
We made it back to the dorms much faster than I’d expected. It was still full dark, and with the blanket of fresh snow, silent as the grave.
Masha scowled as she opened the door for us. I wondered whether she was actually bummed we’d made it back alive, or if she looked that dour for every occasion. Had she hoped that, right about then, we’d be something’s midnight snack?
“The first to return,” she announced as we came to the second-floor hall. A cluster of Initiates were gathered on the couches, waiting.
The first to return. We were the only ones who’d made it back so far. I bit my cheeks to keep from smiling. I’d show these Initiates I could be as stoic as they were.
Redheaded Trinity glared at us. Unflinching, I met her eyes. Never before had I let my gaze linger on her for so long. Her eyebrows and lashes were the palest shade of orange, making her dark eyes pop from her face. They were chocolate brown, and full of menace and hate. “Nothing found you?” She sounded skeptical and annoyed.
I stood tall, my chin up, even though all I wanted to do was collapse into my bed. Emma was a quiet presence at my shoulder. I’d relied on her in the wilderness, and she was relying on me now.
“Something found us. We killed it.” I was proud of the matter-of-fact tone I’d managed, when what I really wanted to do was squee and jump up and down, telling everyone in great, dramatic detail all that’d come to pass.
“Truly?” Masha feigned a patient smile. I wondered if she thought she’d caught us in a lie. “What did this . . . thing look like?”
I met her eyes and refused to let myself look away. “It was human-shaped. With black skin, like a rotted corpse. Its eyes seemed to glow red.”
I’d spent much time considering those eyes on our hike back. Vampires had the same basic body parts as the humans they’d once been, and our monster had struck me as a vampire that’d somehow gone wrong.
The Initiates still glared at us, and, feeling I had something to prove, I busted out the academic speak. “Though if the thing really had been a person once, I don’t know how glowing eyes would be possible, biologically speaking. They were luminous, reflecting ambient light in the darkness, like a cat’s might.”
“It was a Draug,” Amanda said.
It was a relief to hear my Proctor, a relatively friendly voice. I hadn’t seen her leaning against the far wall.
My smile flickered at the sight of her, but I forced my face back to stone. “Whatever it was, it didn’t seem . . . rational. It was frenzied, seeming to operate without reason.” I thought of the closest counterpart in my experience. “It acted like an angry gator.”
Amanda nodded. “Draug are barely sentient. They are id.”
I felt Emma shift. I doubted the concepts of ego and id were ones she and gramps had explored on the old homestead. I clarified for her benefit, but subtly. “So they act without thought,” I said, rephrasing. “On pure impulse. Instinct.”
“That’s the way, dolly. They’re hungry; they eat.” The other Initiates frowned at Amanda as she spoke. I suspected they’d rather we be kept in the dark. “You’re lucky it didn’t eat you.”
“It wasn’t luck,” Emma said, her voice uncharacteristically bold. “I had my knife. We fought it. Drew killed it.”
A faint ripple of movement washed across the room as Initiates parsed this information. Her delivery seemed like it might’ve been disrespectful. But she’d simply spoken factually and without emotion. If they wanted something to reprimand, they weren’t going to find it in Emma.
“Acari Drew took it down, eh?” Masha stared at me.
I forced myself not to pale. I wondered how many of these Draug she’d killed. I gave her a brief nod.
“Nicely done, Drew.” Proctor Amanda didn’t risk a smile, but her features did warm momentarily. That was something. I couldn’t bear being hated by everyone.
I thought of Ronan. He must be furious. Would he hate me for sneaking my iPod? Worse, would he be blamed for it? I hoped my kill would at least make him proud.